Question

Consider the following scenario. Two friends, Rachel and Joey, enjoy baking bread and making apple pies. Rachel takes two hours to bake one loaf of bread and one hour to make one pie. Joey takes four hours to bake one loaf of bread and four hours to make one pie. If Rachel and Joey decide to specialize in order to maximize their combined output, who should produce what?

Answer 1

Answer: Rachel should produce pie and Joey should produce bread.

Explanation:

Rachel can make 1 loaf of bread in 2 hours and 1 pie in 1 hour. Therefore, Rachel can take less time to produce 1 pie as compared to 1 loaf of bread, as a result she should produce pie.

Joey can make 1 loaf of bread in 4 hours and 1 pie in 4 hours. Therefore, Joey can take same time for producing either pie or bread. But he has only one option to produce bread.

So, Rachel is specialized in producing pie and Joey is specialized in producing bread in order to maximize their combined output.